I've managed to solder over a useful hole... How can I fix this and get what I need in that hole? I've tried heating it up and sticking my headers through, but it cools too quickly to be able to do that.

My personal trick is to heat the part and pull out the wire or pin and then re-heat it slightly and just bang it against my leg... soft enough to not hurt anything and just hard enough to create a little mechanical shock to dislodge the solder. I can Pull 20 pins out of a (.6mm pins) PC board and have holes clean enough to put another pin strip in place in 10 15 minutes. The Hot solder is cool enough not to do any damage to my pants either. I di wear Denim all the time though and the solder remnants will flick off easily without damaging the material (or I have been exceedingly lucky for 30+ years. When I worked for a living I frequently use that method as I didn't have to wait for the desoldering tool to heat up and it is a lot easier to clean a few solder spots from my pants than it is to clean the desoldering machine... I don't have to take a hot pair of pants apart and deal with that rather toxic combination of lead and tin oxides that always forms as a dust in the iron. Also don't have to worry about burns either as I don't wear hot pants...

Doc

--> WA7EMS "The solution of every problem is another problem." -Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI do answer technical questions PM'd to me with whatever is in my clipboard